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With surveys indicating sky-high customer satisfaction and large, growing demand, Apple's gamble with the iPad seems to be paying off richly. New estimates suggest that Apple is selling more iPads than Macs - with 200,000 sold every week, almost as many iPads as iPhones - and the number continues to grow as demand remains high. Meanwhile, new iPad owners report what one pollster calls "nose-bleed satisfaction numbers" as high as 91%.

The consumer research firm ChangeWave released two surveys today. As reported in Computerworld and elsewhere, asked 3,174 people how likely they were to buy an iPad, and the other checked in with 153 new iPad owners to see how satisfied they were with their purchase. 7 percent of the people ChangeWave asked about buying an iPad said they thought they were "very likely" going to do so, and another 13 percent said they were "somewhat likely:" meaning that a staggering one in five random people surveyed thought there was a good chance they'd buy the device, most of them within six months.

And what about people who have already made the decision to buy? Three-quarters of them said that they were "very satisfied" with the iPad, and another 17% said they were "somewhat satisfied." Paul Carton, ChangeWave's research director, compared these statistics to another blockbuster Apple device. "Apple is reaching the kind of nose-bleed satisfaction numbers of iPhone owners," he said Carton. "A 91% satisfied rating is a very good beginning for Apple, to say the least."

The most significant disappointments with the iPad are the fact that there's no camera, which bothered 29% of owners, and the absence of USB, pointed out by 10%. The same number objected to the lack of Flash support." Carton said this was, in essence, nothing to worry about, saying that there was "no smoking gun" of broad dissatisfaction. "There's nothing here reaching the 25%-30% mark," he said, "nothing here that stands out."

AppleInsider reports that the iPad is selling like hotcakes as a result: according to an analyst with RBC Capital Markets "sustained word-of-mouth" is pushing sales up to the level of the iPhone 3GS, which sold 246,000 in the first quarter of this year. Checks of retail sales indicate 200,000 iPads are being sold each month, almost double the number of Macs.